#69 Grilled Eggplants with Asian Inspired Sauce

I miss grilled eggplants, so this weekend, I bought Chinese eggplants and grilled it. I have been looking for a particular variety of eggplants here in the US for 6 years now, I don't know what it is called, but I will know it is the one when I see it, and so far no luck. Eggplants we grow organically at home, long and very thin,  picked when they're very young are sooo delicious. My Mama always has a basket full of eggplants in her kitchen straight from her garden. Round, long, short, thin, fat, green, purple..you name it, she has it all. :)  Back home, I used a simple soy sauce with crushed fresh chili peppers as a dip to a deliciously grilled or steamed eggplant, it's the only sauce for grilled eggplants that I know of. Since I'm just starting to discover the many ways to cook it, I conveniently chose soy sauce as the base for my dip and I added a few ingredients. After making the sauce, I poured it all over the eggplants. Although the sauce was good,  it was an "ok" dish because the eggplants were not the best.  I will keep looking for very young eggplants, I hope I'll get lucky at the farmer's market.


GRILLED EGGPLANTS WITH ASIAN INSPIRED SAUCE


Ingredients:

1 eggplant, sliced
1 stalk green onions, chopped
2 teaspoons minced ginger
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Grill sliced eggplants.
2. Mix the remaining ingredients. Then pour it on the eggplants, or use it as a dip.

Eggplant is also known as "Aubergine" in French and British English. It also known as brinjal, brinjal eggplant, melongene or guinea squash. Native to the Indian subcontinent, they were also cultivated in Southern and Eastern Asia since prehistory. The kind of eggplant that I am looking for is probably the Chinese or Hongkong variety, but since they are harvested when mature, they do not taste the same as how I remember. So I guess I will be really lucky if I even find it at the farmer's markets. Maybe it is time to get a pot and  plant one or two. :)

 

I was that hungry for it. :)